


selenophilia

by hyunchans



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Anxiety, Car Accident, Implied mental illness, Inspired, Lost Time, M/M, Side Effects MV, Unreliable Narrator, fluff moments, hyunjin tries to fight seungmin, mentions of nausea, mv fic fest, very brief moment where hyunjin is sick, weird timeline/order of events, what is real and what is not? you tell me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:46:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27536257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyunchans/pseuds/hyunchans
Summary: hyunjin tried not to think about the rising horizon, the way it made him feel like he was forgetting something.someone.
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Felix, Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27
Collections: STRAY KIDS MV FICFEST





	selenophilia

**Author's Note:**

> written for the [skz mv fic fest!](https://twitter.com/skzmvfest) inspired by the [side effects](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rPluw_-Eb4&ab_channel=JYPEntertainment) music video.
> 
> i have picked apart scenes from the music video and pieced them together in an obscure manner on purpose. no matter how hard i have tried, there is no one theory i can come up with for side effects, hence the jarring scenes i have chosen. in a way, this is a piece exploring dreams, reality and what we distinguish between the two. it explores hyunjin's feelings as he struggles to pick what is right for him, or what might challenge him. it explores aspects of mental illness. i hope this can be relatable in some way and i would love to hear your interpreation.

In Hyunjin's world, the Earth which he walks rotates on its axis around two moons. The first being the one that rises with the sun in the morning on the horizon. Much like his Felix. The second, was the phantom moon that rose expectantly every evening, though it changed its form every single time. Much like his Minho.

༊

Hyunjin liked having two parts of him lit and yet dimmed at any given time, but eventually, it had taken its toll on his body. He rolled over onto his side, urgently grasping for the sick bucket he kept next to his bed for this exact reason.

_Side effects may include n ervousness, insomnia, nausea, agitation, anxiety, perspiration, visual problems, psychosis, numbness, dizziness, headaches, and weight loss._

They weren't lying about nausea.

He felt a hand curl up his back, desperately tracing soothing circles against his bare skin.

"Remember to breathe," the voice whispered against his neck. Hyunjin grounded himself, feeling every tickle and shiver that his body produced from the fingers brushing against his skin. He anchored himself to the hair that was now covering half his face as Felix had begun to press tender kisses to his temple, despite having vomit caked on the lower half of his face.

"Remember that I'm here."

༊

It was hazy, both Hyunjin’s dreams and reality. At this point, he couldn’t tell the difference between the two.

When Hyunjin stirred, his eyes opened to a sky blanketed in darkness. He was on his back, and he could hear the crickets chirping in the distance. When he looked up and saw the stars spaced out in the onyx sky above him, he sat up slowly. Someone he didn’t recognize, someone who had very bleached hair was the first one by his side. One by one, a group of seven people appeared at his side, the blonde opting to brush stray pieces of grass from his clothes.

“You’ve been out for a while, are you okay?”

Hyunjin was fuzzy, he couldn’t remember where he had been beforehand. He stared at the blonde blankly, not recognizing who he was supposed to be, or what significance he had once held. The blonde helps Hyunjin up, hooking an arm around his shoulder and hoisting him up until he can find his own footing and balance. He walks with the other seven, blankly as he tries to figure out how he got here.

He couldn’t quite place why he felt so numb. 

༊

“You shouldn’t be here,” Hyunjin warned as he opened up his front door to find Minho on the other side.

“I want to apologise for how things ended the other night,” Minho says. Hyunjin stares at him, at his awkward posture and the ways his eyes cannot maintain eye contact with him for very long. A part of him cries out when those crescent eyes finally lock onto his own, before Minho envelopes him in a long embrace.

“I don’t want to keep hurting you like this,” Minho whispers into his ears. Hyunjin lets himself fall deeply into the embrace, so far he knows he won’t be able to physically pull himself out from. 

“Maybe that’s why I keep letting you back in,” Hyunjin says out loud.

“But we both know I can never keep a promise,” Minho says back. His lips move against Hyunjin’s airs, tickling the baby hairs that had strayed from his ponytail.

Hyunjin tried not to think about the rising horizon, the way it made him feel like he was forgetting something.

Someone.

༊

The truck rolled over every uneven piece of gravel and dirt as it rolled through the open grass field. The summer sun was reaching its peak temperature, and sweat beads rolled down each of their faces. 

_“When you throw all your trust into one person, you are most likely going to end up being hurt.”_

The words his grandfather had told him years ago echoed in his head as he watched Felix stand from his seat in the truck. He reached his arms up and through the railed roofing, placing his two feet on the seat and trying to stand up.

“Felix get down!” Hyunjin yelled as Felix swung a leg over the railing.

“I just want to get a better look? Calm down.”

Felix persisted with trying to crawl up onto the roof, but Hyunjin didn’t trust him. He didn’t trust that any of them wouldn’t get hurt. That any of them wouldn’t hurt him. Hyunjin grabbed hold of Felix’s jumper, pulling the boy back down and into his seat. The freckled young man shot him a nasty glare, pushing Hyunjin away from him. 

Hyunjin sunk into his seat, defeated. He looked next to Felix who began his descent to the top of the truck once more. 

༊

Felix always knew when something was wrong. Hyunjin was disorientated often, not knowing where he was when he woke up some mornings. When Felix tries to pick his brains he ignores his questions, opting to shower his boyfriend in kisses instead. The thing he loved about Felix is that he never tried to push him, when he sensed Hyunjin didn’t want to talk about something he quickly changed the subject. Hyunjin liked these types of mornings, lazily lounging in the bed, cuddled up in each other's arms, sharing intimate moments while the summer heat blanketed them with a sleepy state of being. When they pulled apart from a kiss, Felix’s eyes caught notice of something shiny around Hyunjin’s neck.

“I’ve never seen this one before,” Felix murmured as he reached out towards the necklace delicately hanging from his boyfriend’s neck. Felix holds the necklace between two fingers, letting his finger pads brush over the key that was linked through the chain. Felix tried to pull it out far enough for Hyunjin to see, but Hyunjin couldn’t quite remember where or when he got it.

“Keys hold a lot of significance you know,” Felix tells him. Hyunjin cocks his head, intently waiting for his moon to carry on.

“At its heart, the key is the opener of locks. What might this symbolize you trying to open Hyunjin?”

The room was laced with a fuzzy haze, and Felix was drifting away from him. Felix’s eyes turned from pleasant to worried in record time, hands searching and desperately trying to ground Hyunjin to the present.

“Myself.”

༊

The truck suddenly halts, causing a deafening shriek to ring in everyone’s ears. Minho’s hands are shaking as the truck's gears gurgle and grind from the sudden pause in momentum.

“This is as far as we can go,” he states. The rest of the young men look ahead to the electric fence dividing them from the horizon with massive signs that have the words “do not enter” across them. Hyunjin rolls his eyes, frustrated at the sight. Everyone else doesn’t seem to be bothered, in fact, they all get out of the truck and walk closer to the fence, not wary of how close they could get without getting shocked. They didn’t know if there was anything else going to stop them from moving forward, what if there were hidden traps closer to the fence? Hyunjin’s thoughts are interrupted when he hears a camera snap behind him. As he twirls around, a man he remembers calling himself Seungmin is holding a camera aimed at him. Hyunjin can’t ignore it, the rage and agitation that fills his body. He doesn’t think twice as he charges Seungmin, grabbing hold of his shoulders and shoving him backward, hard. 

The others watch the scene unfold before their eyes, dread filling the air as Hyunjin raises a hand on Seungmin. A blonde man grabs him, pulling him back with the help of two others. Minho and two others hold Seungmin back, who was equally as angry at Hyunjin now due to the sudden fit of rage. Felix stood between the two of them, attempting to be the voice of reason.

Why did he seem so familiar?

༊

Moments with Minho sometimes felt like he was experiencing the end of the world. Hyunjin never knew what side of him he would be seeing when they crossed paths, but he always knew that it would be memorable no matter the nature of the meeting.

As they stared up at the stars, hand in hand, Minho slowly turned his head to face Hyunjin.

“How are you feeling?” he asks Hyunjin, not expecting more than a blatant lie.

Hyunjin felt warm as he stared up at the stars above him, unable to find the moon in the night sky.

"Hyunjin?” Minho asked.

Hyunjin hesitates, picking at his cuticles as he traces constellations in the sky in his mind. They remind him of something, someone, but he can’t place it.

"I feel weird, my vision is blurry."

“I’m sorry,” Minho tells him.

It shouldn’t be that comforting, but Hyunjin can’t help but feel a brief moment of relaxation wash over him. Today he has the worried side of Minho, today he can’t tell if this is a dream or a distant memory. 

It never lasts long.

"Why doesn't it end? I keep hearing disturbing voices," Hyunjin’s voice trails off, unable to stop the words that were distorting his thoughts as they spread through his ears. It’s then that he was reminded that the moon was right beside him, reaching out to take his cheeks in its hands.

“Let me in Hyunjin,” the moon says, crescent eyes heavy as he closes the distance between them.

Hyunjin loved the moon, he loved its lips against his, how easy it could distract him from the side effects that plagued him daily. 

How it helped him forget who he really was. 

༊

Hyunjin gazed at the grass and the puddles that had collected on the uneven surface. He was alone, with no clue where anyone else was. Something caught his eyes, something small, but not small enough to completely evade his attention. He bent down and got onto his knees as he dove his hand into the puddle to produce a key, a key he had been looking for for so long.

_ “At its heart, the key is the opener of locks. Who are you trying to open Hyunjin?” _

His body was static, hair sticking up on his body, goosebumps covering him all over. Whose voice was that? Why did he recognize it? Why couldn’t he place it? More so, why was his heart turning in his chest, and why did it feel like the Earth was going to sink beneath him at any given moment?

“Maybe it hurts more because I thought it would be easy,” Hyunjin trails off. 

He sees two moons appear in front of him in the distance. One was surrounded in a hue much like what the sun gives off. It felt like sunrise, like the warmth of summer that grew in the early hours of the morning. One was a phantom moon, half shadowed, and the other half-illuminated in pearl. He rolls the key around in his hand, letting the water coat his skin as he dried it off. At that moment his memories play like a film on loop in his mind, two different lives with two different moons. Two completely different words and two versions of himself though they seemed to share bits and pieces with each other.

He pauses before he walks forwards, not in one distinguishable direction. As he looks back at the puddle where the key had been found, he questions himself. 

“Did I make the right choice?”

**Author's Note:**

> i would love to know how you interpreted this.
> 
> if you enjoyed this, don't hesitate to leave kudos or comments, we writers love seeing your reactions and knowing our work has made someone smile ♡ validation is a very strong thing we thrive off of after all.
> 
> links to my socials:  
> [1\. twitter](https://twitter.com/hyvnchns) if anyone would like to follow for updates, and sneak peeks on wips and such, or even just to scream and cry over skz  
> [2\. cc](https://curiouscat.qa/hyvnchns) if you prefer anonymity! and i also take requests :)


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